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l^vx\t% W ^exk 



THE MEMORY OF McKINLEY 




Philadelphia, June 6, 1908. — James M. Beck, 
formerly Assistant Attorney-General in the McKinley 
administration, to-day delivered the oration at the dedica- 
cation of the McKinley statue, on the south side of the 
Plaza of the City Hall, in this city. 

After speaking of McKinley's career as a soldier, 
Legislator and Executive, and justifying the Insular 
Policy as the crowning achievement of his career, Mr. 
Beck said in part : 

While we cannot raise the veil of the future, yet 
we can proudly claim that the immediate results of 
McKinley's policy of expansion have been for the good 
of the Republic and the greater good of civilization. 
With greater truth than the third Napoleon we can 
say: "The Republic is peace. 'V' Never was its power 






in 












greater, its influence more peaceful, or its honor more 
unsullied. It has become the great arbitrator of na- 
tions. Its only diplomacy has been that of transparent 
candor, and to it, in the last decade, the world 
has looked for a just solution of many intricate prob- 
lems. When Pekin was in a state of revolution, 
while the soldiers of the Republic marched shoulder 
to shoulder with the soldiers of England, Ger- 
many, Russia and Japan, to the relief of the belea- 
guered legations, it was America which took the 
tolerant position that no state of war existed with 
China. When China was threatened with dismem- 
berment, it was to President McKinley that it turned 
for protection and through him its integrity was largely 
preserved. It was our country which softened the 
terms of peace, returned the unused portion of its 
indemnity and secured the policy of the "open door." 
When the Russo-Japanese War again threatened to 
involve the integrity of Chinese territory, it was to 
President Roosevelt that Kaiser Wilhelm turned to 
enlist his good offices to secure a restriction of the field 
of operation. It was again our country which 
brought Japan and Russia, after a bloody war, into 
friendly conference and secured the Treaty of Ports- 
mouth. The Hague Conference may owe its initiative 
to the Czar, but it owes its continuance and beneficial 
results in large part to the American policy as formu- 



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knew he knew well ; but he never sought to "box the 
compass" of human knowledge. He never pretended 
to have a remedy for every ill, a conclusion for every 
question, and words for every occasion. It could not 
be said of him, as Sydney Smith said of Lord John 
Russell, that 

"there is nothing he would not undertake. I 
believe he would perform an operation for stone, 
build St. Peter's, assume (with or without ten 
minutes' notice) the command of the Channel 
Fleet, and no one would discover from his man- 
ner that the patient had died, that St. Peter's had 
tumbled down, and that the Channel Fleet had 
been knocked to atoms." 

McKinley did not seek to change in a day conditions 
which required decades for their due and orderly ad- 
justment. He was not unmindful of the serious evils, 
to which our rapid expansion had given rise. He gave 
them serious thought and conservative action. As Mr. 
Cortelyou has recently said : 

"But to deal with them effectively without 
shattering the interwoven and delicate fabric 
of the forces that were co-operating for the wel- 
fare of the country — that was the question." 

He was a conservative, not a radical; an evo- 
lutionist, not a revolutionist. A great leader of a party, 
he became by a "gentle persistency," worthy of Lincoln, 
a greater leader of the whole people, but his complete 



mastery of men and events never lessened the self-ef- 
facing modesty of his nature. 

He had neither the austere mastery of men 
of Washington, the constructive genius of Hamilton, 
the philosophic breadth of Jefferson, the brilliant mag- 
netism of Clay, nor the profound reasoning of Webster. 
I lis nearest analogue is Lincoln. Like Lincoln, he had 
the genius of common sense, that instinctive sense of 
and regard for the just relation of things to each other ; 
like Lincoln, he had profound sympathy with the in- 
most thoughts, the deepest feelings, the loftiest aspira- 
tions of the American people; like Lincoln, he had the 
gift of grasping the fundamental principles underlying 
a controversy and interpreting them to the masses in 
convincing phrases. Above all, like Lincoln, he had 
that greatest of all dynamic powers, a great, loving, 
sympathetic heart. Of both it could be written in the 
inspired words of the great Apostle: 

"Love suffereth long and is kind; iove en- 
vied! not ; love vaunteth not itself ; is not puffed 
up. 

Doth not behave unseemly; seeketh not- her 
own; is not easily provoked; thinketh no evil. 
Beareth, all things, believeth all things, 
hopeth all things, endureth all things." 

Such was Lincoln ! Such was McKinley ! 
v His very sympathy subjected him to the unjust 
charge that he was a vacillating opportunist. Such 
critics mistook cautious deliberation, tactful sympathy, 

16 



courteous toleration of the views of others, practical 
recognition of the inevitable limitations of political 
power, with a timorous spirit. He was not an egotist 
and recognized the necessity and therefore the duty of 
concession to the views of others in a democratic com- 
monwealth. 

Indeed, his whole career showed that under his 
gentle demeanor and considerate courtesy and unfail- 
ing tolerance, there lay an iron will which was as a 
stone wall covered with flowers. 

On the eve of the Spanish-American War, a com- 
mittee of the Board of Trade of an Ohio city came 
to the White House to urge him, as citizens of his own 
State, to declare war. It happened that Captain Sigs- 
bee, of the Maine, was in the Executive Room when 
the committee was ushered in, and, after the delegation 
had stated its purpose, the President excused himself 
for a moment, turned to Captain Sigsbee and, clasp- 
ing his hand, said in a voice sufficiently loud for the 
Ohio delegation to hear him: 

"Captain Sigsbee, you never did a finer 
thing for the honor of your country than when, 
after the explosion of the Maine, you re- 
quested your fellow-countrymen to suspend 
judgment." 

The delegation took the gentle hint and departed 
wiser if sobered men. 

His faithful secretary, than whom none in public 

'7 



life possibly understood him better, has recently given 
an instance of his firmness and deliberation when essen- 
tials were at stake. When not only his own party in 
Congress, but a great majority of the American people 
were clamoring for an immediate declaration of war 
with Spain, the President, at the risk of his own popu- 
larity, stood like a stone wall against that course. 
When, however, further opposition was fruitless he 
prepared a message to be sent to Congress recommend- 
ing intervention in the affairs of Cuba. He believed 
that when the message was made public the life of 
every American on the island would be imperiled. To 
quote Mr. Cortelyou : 

"The President was sitting with his Cabi- 
net, and when prominent Senators and Repre 
sentatives and some of those present were urg- 
ing him to send in his message at once, they de- 
clared that any further delay might mean po- 
litical destruction for his administration and 
party. Mr. McKinley sent for me to bring 
the message to him. I laid it on the table be- 
fore him. Just then there came an Army 
cablegram from Fitzhugh Lee (our consul at 
Havana), saying that it would be dangerous 
to act until he sent further word. But at that 
moment a number of those in the room again 
pressed the President to send his message be- 
fore Congress immediately. Mr. McKinley 
could hardly have been under greater pressure. 
He caught the string to the bell, but suddenly 

iS 



he caught his hand, raised it and brought his 
fist down on the table with a bang, as he said, 
in a clear voice, 'That message is not going tc 
Congress so long as there is a single remain- 
ing life in danger in Cuba. Here,' turning to 
me, 'put that in the safe until I call for it.' ' 

His unfailing courtesy to those who not only dif- 
fered with him, but bitterly assailed his policy, may be 
illustrated by two incidents. 

His insular policy had no more sincere or unspar- 
ing critic than the late Senator Hoar. In the lat- 
ter's memoirs we learn that the President, after these 
bitter attacks, invited the Massachusetts Senator to 
the White House. The Senator thus describes the in- 
terview : 

"He greeted me with the delightful and af- 
fectionate cordiality which I always found in 
him. He took me by the hand and said : 'How 
are you feeling this winter, Mr. Senator?' I 
was determined there should be no misunder- 
standing. I replied at once: 'Pretty pug- 
nacious, I confess, Mr. President.' The tears 
came into his eyes and he said, grasping my 
hand again: 

'I shall always love you, whatever you do.' " 

The other incident was told me by a member of his 
Cabinet and an eye-witness. On one occasion, at a 
Cabinet meeting, one of his secretaries asked the Presi- 
dent to remove summarily a subordinate because of a 

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public statement which reflected upon his departmental 
superior. The reflection was more thoughtless than in- 
tentional. McKinley took the printed statement and 
carefully examined it, and, knowing circumstances of 
palliation, of which the secretary was ignorant, turned 
to the secretary and said, "If this is a reflection on you, 
Mr. Secretary, it is equally one on me as President of 
the United States," and the Secretary promptly said, 
"It is an insult to you and that is a double reason why 
he should be instantly removed. If you so regard it, will 
you not remove him, Mr. President?" And the Presi- 
dent, quietly putting the paper in his pocket, said, 
"Well, if upon further consideration I regard this as a 
reflection upon me, I think I shall forgive him." 

Who can forget his courteous expression of regret 
after he was shot, that this tragic event should mar the 
festal occasion at which it happened? His tenderness 
for his invalid wife was but the perfect flower of his 
knightly courtesy to all. Even to his base assassin he 
had extended the right hand of fellowship. 

Time will not suffice to dwell upon his many amiable 
and noble characteristics, and yet in this presence, 
where are gathered his brave comrades of the "Grand 
Army of the Republic," I must not fail to dwell, though 
but briefly, upon his patriotism, which with him was 
ever a passionate emotion. 

% In all his public life, unless we except its beautiful 
and pathetic end, nothing is nobler and truer than its 



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beginning, when as a boy of eighteen he heard the call 
of his country and as a private followed its beckoning 
flag to the front. Like every act of his life, it was not 
an impulse born of passing enthusiasm or love of ad- 
venture, but a deliberately conceived act of patriotic 
duty. Only a few years before impaired health had 
compelled him to leave college in his junior year 
and he was then earning a scanty livelihood as a public 
school teacher. He could well plead his extreme youth, 
his dependent family, his impaired health. 

Visiting the City of Columbus, he saw a regiment 
departing for the front. An unimpassioned boy, 
thoughtful rather than emotional, neither the spirit- 
stirring drum, the ear-piercing fife, or other pride, 
pomp or circumstance of war had any call for him 
But the flag had a message for him, an imperious call 
to duty, and on his return home he told his mother that 
he must go, and that mother, with the Spartan forti- 
tude of so many American mothers at that fateful and 
ever-glorious period, simply said : 

"If you think it is your duty to fight for 
your country, I think you should go. 

Thus he joined that noble army of young men who, 
in the dark days of 1861, left their farms, their shops, 
their counting houses, their homes, their families, to 
offer their lives, if need were, to save the Republic. 
When General Grant was the guest of honor at a great 
dinner in Germany, he was hailed as the "Saviour of 

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his country," to which the great commander modestly 
replied : "It was the young men, and not I, who saved 
the Republic." Again, when with failing pen he fin- 
ished his memoirs, he simply dedicated the recital of 
glorious achievements "To the American Soldier and 
Sailor." 

The tribute was deserved. Only He, who "counteth 
all our sorrows," will ever appreciate the deathless 
glory and infinite sacrifices of the volunteers of 1861. 
From Bull Run to Appomattox they struggled bravely 
on. To many, the Wilderness was a great Gethsemane, 
in which they felt "sweat as of great drops of blood" ; to 
others, the shell-stormed streets of Gettysburg were a 
via dolorosa, which they trod to a martyr's death ; to 
others, the heights of Fredericksburg were a Calvary, 
in which they repeated the infinite tragedy of the Cross. 
Had young McKinley fallen as so many others, what 
appreciation would he have had? A sorrowing mother 
to ceaselessly lament him while life remained, a few 
comrades to decorate with each recurring spring his 
grave, but otherwise he would simply have joined that 
ghostly army, of which the Abbe Perreyve writes : 

"Unseen by the corporal eyes, but too clearly 
visible to the mind's eye, the great army of the 
dead, the army of the slain, the abandoned, the 
forgotten; the army of cruel torture and pro- 
longed infirmities, which pursues its fatal march 
behind what we call glory." 



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■<■.' 



Of McKinley's fidelity as a soldier, let his com- 
manding' officer, General Hayes, speak: 

"The night was never too dark, the weather 
was never too cold, there was no sleet or storm, 
or hail or snow, that was in the way of his 
prompt and efficient performance of every 
duty." 

At Antietam, Kernstown, Opequan, Fisher's Creek, 
Winchester and Cedar Hill, he distinguished himself 
by conspicuous acts of bravery, and received therefor 
the reward he most cherished — a commission "for gal- 
lantry and meritorious services," with the simple sig- 
nature of "Abraham Lincoln." 

His training as a soldier prepared him for that 
tragic end, than which nothing more beautiful or 
pathetic has happened in our history. 

He had entered his second administration with the 
liveliest expectations of beneficent results which would 
surpass all that he had accomplished. At home pros- 
perity, peace and mutual sympathy were everywhere 
abundant. His visits South after the Spanish-Amer- 
ican War had forever healed the wounds of our great 
civil conflict. Never was there less feeling among the 
classes and sections, never less murmurs of discontent. 
Perhaps the crown of his achievements was that "era 
of good feeling." 

Mr. Cortelyou has recently told us that at this time 
he often heard McKinley say with deep emotion, "I 

2 3 



can no longer be called the President of a party ; I am 
the President of the whole people." 

In this spirit he went to Buffalo, there to realize 
an unconscious prediction of his own lips as to his own 
end. Nine years ago he had stood where I stand now, 
and, speaking within these walls to many now here as- 
sembled, said of the pathetic end of Grant : 

"And when he had finished that work, he 
laid down his pen, and, like a good soldier, said 
to his Master, 'Now, let thy will be done, not 



''Like a good soldier," McKinley faced death and 
accepted his tragic end. The pathos of that death has 
rarely been equaled. It touched as few others the great 
heart of the world. One can recall the sad verses of 
McKinley's true friend and tried counsellor, John Hay : 

"My short and happy day is done, 
The long and lonely night comes on ; 
And at my door the pale horse stands 
To carry me to unknown lands. 

His whinny shrill, his pawing hoof, 
Sound dreadful as a gathering storm, 
And I must leave this sheltering roof 
And joys of life so soft and warm. 

Tender and warm the joys of life, 
Good friends, the faithful and the true ; 
My rosy children and my wife, 
So sweet to kiss, so fair to view. 

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So sweet to kiss, so fair to view — 
The night comes on, the light burns blue ; 
And at my door the pale horse stands 
To bear me forth to unknown lands.'' 

To him was permitted, although unconsciously, a 
farewell to the people, whom he had led to high achieve- 
ment and from whom he was to be taken forever. 

Like the farewell address of Washington, his last 
public utterance was a plea not only for a greater 
America, but for "peace on earth, good will among 
men." 

"God and man," said he, "have linked the 
nations together. No nation can longer be in- 
different to any other," 

and then, with hands outstretched as if in bene- 
diction in the clear sunshine of that September day, he 
prayed that 

"God will graciously vouchsafe properity and 
peace to all our neighbors and like blessings to 
all the peoples and powers of the earth." 

Such was the last public utterance of William Mc- 
Kinley. 

On the following day, with his accustomed gracious- 
ness, the President stepped from the eminence from 
which he had addressed the people and stood on a level 
with them, extending, as their friend and brother, the 
right hand of fellowship to all who sought it. To old 
or young, rich or poor, powerful or weak, native born 

25 



or foreign born, to one and all, that never-to-be-for- 
gotten kindly glance and the genial clasp of his right 
hand. It was in that moment of popular triumph and 
overflowing good-will that a miserable wretch betrayed 
him with a treachery to which there is hardly a paral- 
lel in baseness since Judas Iscariot betrayed his Master 
with a kiss. 

From the lips of the man who stood next to him, 
and after the fatal shot encircled McKinley with his 
arm, I have within a few days again heard the tragic 
tale. After the fatal bullet struck him, McKinley stood 
erect "like a soldier," and then, without a change in his 
countenance or a tremor in his voice, said to Mr. Mil- 
burn : 

"Did that man shoot me?" 

"I fear he did, Mr. President," was the sad reply. 

The President then noticed a dozen strong arms 
which had seized the assassin and threatened to tear 
him limb from limb. "Let no one harm him," the 
President said, calmly. No utterance could have been 
more characteristic. It was not maudlin sympathy, 
but a desire that even this base wretch should not be 
the victim of mob rule. Again he thus held inviolate 
the honor of his country and the majesty of law. 

Neither then nor in the few days of lingering pain 
which followed were any words of bitterness heard 
from his lips. And yet to him, with the simple faith 
of his fathers, there was the "kindly light," which il- 

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* 



laminated the "encircling gloom," and "at eventide 
there was light." As bravely as he had ridden down 
the lines at Kernstown he faced Death, and when the 
end was near he simply said : 

"Good-bye, all; good-bye! It is God's way. 
His will be done." 

Thus he had spoken of his great commander, Grant : 

"And when he had finished his work he laid 

down his pen and, like a good soldier, said to 

his Master, 'Now, let thy will be done; not 

mine.' " 

^ My fellow-citizens, no memorial that we can fashion 
with our hands can be so beautiful as the universal 
sorrow with which men of every race, every class, every 
creed, every nation, heard the tolling of the bells on 
that fourteenth day of September, seven years ago. 
The world paid him the highest honor of its tears. On 
the day of his funeral, the giant industries of America 
paid him the rare tribute of their momentary silence 
and the shining pathway of steel over which his body 
passed to its last home amid the lamentations of the 
people was strewn with flowers. 

Thus it came to pass, as he would most dearly have 
wished, that it could be said of him, as was said of 
another William the Silent: 

"As long as he lived he was the guiding 
star of a whole brave nation, and, when he died, 
the little children cried in the streets." 



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